Re: [lime] Log of today's meeting

Thanks for the log!

cheers,
Nico

On 17/12/22 11:55, Ilario via LibreMesh wrote:
> Dear all,
> below you can find the minutes of today's project meeting written by the
> participants in the meeting.
> The discussions have been extra useful, I hope that you can get most of
> the juicy information reading the log :)
> Also, you can find the previous meetings' logs online here:
> https://pad.codigosur.org/LibreMesh_meetup_dic_2021
>
> The next project meeting will be on:
> Saturday the 4th of February 2023 at 13:00 UTC (14:00 CET, 10:00 ART)
>
> Aaaaaaaaand we scheduled an online technical meeting for testing
> LibreMesh on OpenWrt 22.03!!!!!!
> This will happen on:
> Wednesday the 4th of January 2023 at 13 UTC (15 CET, 10 ART)
>
> Here you go:
>
> ====================
> === 2022-12-17 =========
> ====================
>
> pedro, hiure, gio, ilario, cristina, luandro, duy
>
> -- updates from Altermundi
> -- future meetings schedule
> -- website
> -- list active LibreMesh communities on the homepage
> -- next BattleMesh
> -- recent development
> -- technical meeting
>
> ------------------------------
> updates from Altermundi
> ------------------------------
>
> Gio: babeld is the one with active developing and we are using in the
> framework of Libremesh.
>
> NEW from dev side of Librerouter/Libremesh: - 2 MIMO antennas have 2
> different perception of the quality of the signal and Konejo is working
> on the UI in the Lime APP to give better feedback. The next interface
> for antenna alignment in lime-app will show two signals for each antenna
> that is MIMO 2x2, one signal for each "chain". This should work on most
> wifi chipsets (most routers).
>
> Cristina: Are you doing thid for all the devices that Libremesh actually
> support or only for Librerouter?
> Altermundi is focussing on LibreRouter (it has priority, if possible
> things are implemented for working also on other routers or easy for
> other people to adapt to every hardware) but Gio recognizes the
> importance of supporting other routers.
>
> Luandro: Is there a public roadmap for what u've been working?
> Gio: I didn't have the time to write a public roadmap. Lime-app is an
> important part of the roadmap.
>
> Gio: a big hat that take together librerouter and libremesh
> The goal of LibreMesh-LibreRouter developers is to make something useful
> for communities where there are no specialized people able to go deep in
> the networking.
>
> Work on Alter Mundi roadmap:
> - Lime-App: alignment with multiple chains
> - Rewrite of shared-state
> - Core parts: wifi driver, routing protocols (layer 2 & 3)
> - El Repo
> - Ad-hoc -> 802.11s -> Access Point Mode with mesh support
>
> Alfred was the old tool we used for sharing information between nodes
> implemented by the B.AT.M.A.N-adv developers
> Alfred had problems on non-small networks and caused flooding in the
> networks
> "shared-state" is the new one implemented in the LibreMesh repository.
> For example, one of the features it has is that in the lime-app you see
> the information of the other antennas talking by "shared-state", like
> the hostname, SSID, the mac address..
> The improvements of shared-state are being written by Javier supervised
> by Gio.
> They will stop relying on OpenWrt's HTTP server
>
> Ilario: this code wil be pushed on the openwrt upstream packages? at the
> moment "shared-state" is a feature inside LIbremesh framework
> Gio: at the moment not. Shared-state makes a lot of assumptions on how
> the network is configured, so it is likely to work only for LibreMesh
> networks, until now. There is work to do for making it general.
>
> Luandro: will the plugins need to be rewritten with the next version of
> shared-state?
> Gio:
>
> Gio: we want to allow the communities to edit more parameters in a
> community-wide way from lime-app (not it is possible for the nodes'
> password), for example the wifi channer and to flash all the routers at
> once
>
> Gio: another thing I am doing is to ensure that the low level stuff
> (wifi drivers, routing protocols) are improving. The problems could
> arise from the batman-adv not receiving enough active support, and maybe
> we could abandon L2 entirely. We also are looking into Babeld because it
> is not designed for our usecase so maybe we will need to add stuff to it.
>
> Gio: we are also working on elrepo.io, which is the app-level stuff for
> network communities, for sharing contents between clients
>
> Gio: regarding the wifi links, at the beginning we used adhoc that now
> is quite abandoned, then 802.11s that also is on the way of getting
> abandoned as in the new radios it does not work well. To avoid getting
> stuck with old radios, which means old routers, I am looking in a way to
> use Access Point mode instead of 802.11s, modifying it a bit so that we
> use it in a mesh way using something that is very well supported (AP
> mode). Anyway in LibreRouter we can always add PCI wifi cards.
>
> -----------------------------
> future meeting schedule
> -----------------------------
>
> next meeting schedules seems ok
> * Saturday the 4th of February 2023 at 13:00 UTC (14:00 CET, 10:00 ART).
> * Saturday the 1st of April 2023 at 13:00 UTC (15:00 CEST, 10:00 ART).
> * Saturday the 3rd of June 2023 at 13:00 UTC (15:00 CEST, 10:00 ART).
> * Saturday the 5th of August 2023 at 13:00 UTC (15:00 CEST, 10:00 ART).
> * Saturday the 7th of October 2023 at 13:00 UTC (15:00 CEST, 10:00 ART).
> * Saturday the 2nd of December 2023 at 13:00 UTC (14:00 CET, 10:00 ART).
> Remeber one with the others with an email just a week before, ad promemoria
>
> ---------
> website
> ---------
>
> Ilario: the website is not keeping up with the changes on
> github/libremesh/lime-web
> Gio: the website is hosted in Cordova but probably has not maintaince
> for years, so we have to fix this issue, where host the website..
> Ilario: maybe some other community can host?
> Gio: temporarily we can have it hosted on Github or Gitlab, as the
> website is generated as a static website, it should be enough to create
> a continuous integration for that.
> Cri: better if we avoid Github, but it is ok if it is temporary
> Luandro: not a fan of Github either, but Github makes sense as the
> repository is already on Github
> Gio: not sure who is maintaining the DNS
> Ilario: better to fix what we have before doing it somewhere else.
> Ilario & Cri volunteer to maintain the server
> Gio: the current maintainer for Altermundi's servers didn't mainain the
> servers (did other useful stuff anyway). The machines are in a critical
> state, many problems are there and some physical interventions are going
> to be needed.
> Ilario: ok, you know the situation firsthand and suggest to move it,
> let's do it
> Gio: when we will have the server working again, the current integration
> stuff can be kept as a backup
> Luandro voluntering to the CI for the website and Ilario will give the
> access to the repo.
> Documentation o how to setup Github pages:
> https://docs.github.com/en/pages/getting-started-with-github-pages/configuring-a-publishing-source-for-your-github-pages-site
>
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------
> list active LibreMesh communities on the homepage
> --------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Comunity mesh network using Libremesh:
>
>     - https://antennine.noblogs.org   d'accordo- contatto Cri
>
>     - https://moinho.app/sobre   progetto interrotto, Luandro was envolved
>
>     - https://villagetelco.org/ (south africa) -  Cri will contact send
> a email to Erik
>
>     - https://www.redfusalibre.org (colombia) - Luandro will contact
>
>     - inethi (south africa) - Cri asks Erik
>
>     - ? https://docutopia.tupale.co/s/NuestraRedOrg# - Cri can send and
> Email Cristina
>
>     - https://portalsemporteiras.github.io/
>
>
> Duy: we can refer to these groups as "friends"
> Organization promoting Libremesh:
>
>     - https://www.coolab.org/ - Luandro will confirm if they agree
>
>     - https://ibebrasil.org.br/  - They are more on political topics
> than networks, Luandro will ask
>
>     - https://altermundi.org - They agree
>
>     - https://ninux.org - They agree
>
>     - wakoma - Cri will email Erik
>
>     - Librerouter.org - They agree --> 25 new community this year.. Gio
> ask to the people of the Semillero
>
>     - Freifunk - They are already on the website...
>
>     - Guifi.net - They are already on the website...
>
>     - https://nupef.org.br - Luandro ask
>
>     - https://open.janastu.org/projects/cowmesh - They agree
>
>
> ------------------------
> next battlemesh
> ------------------------
>
> pedro: next battlemesh in calafou! https://battlemesh.org/BattleMeshV15
> looking for funding, to facilitate the travel of the farer people,
> Battlemesh will be between the 8 and the 14 of May.
> Battlemesh has the intent to compare an dialogate between the diferent
> community that develop the differents mesh protocols.  In the pas
> edition there where two firmware based on openwrt: libremesh and Gluon
> develop from freifunk, and was interesting the meetings. here video of
> the last https://battlemesh.org/BattleMeshV14
> In the final assembly people move the attention on the community more
> that on the performance of the routing protocols.
> so is really good if we can yearly meeting in that event, in Battlemesh,
> as Libremeshh community,
>
> from 8 of 14 may in Calafou, bring hardwares! because the new calafou
> network needs. Because BEFORE the event we want restyle the network of
> the settlement (an old textile industry on a river) to give connectivity
> to their workshape and residential, but also set a testbed for net.
> There there is optical fiber, so we have to see how manage that expect,
> and some problem with rats. Plan to deploy 7 or 8 routers on differents
> levels of the building, some internal and some external. We have 5 good
> outdoor routers (Plasma Cloud PA1200).
> Duy, ilario and pedro are documenting in a private repository that
> intend to be public at some point https://0xacab.org/duy/wbmv15. Write
> to duy at sytemli dot org if you would like to be added
>
>
> ------------------------
> recent development
> ------------------------
>
> Need to update LibreMesh to work with  openwrt22, we will drop some
> devices that will be abandoned after OpenWrt19
> The outdoor routers that we are going to use in BattleMesh are supported
> since OpenWrt 21.02, so that we need to update LibreMesh in order to use
> them.
> different people are touching files and testing, but need work together
>
> ---------------------
> technical meeting
> ---------------------
>
> Cri: we could have a meeting for testing LibreMesh on OpenWrt22
> Ilario: important to test it on different routers (e.g. routers with
> only one ethernet port or routers with only 2.4 GHz etc etc)
> ilario proposes to have a technical online meeting the 4th of January 13
> UTC -- 14 CET, 10 ART